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Races
On this page I'll cover the specifics on races pertinent to this world. This page isn't supposed to be exhaustive, and there are many other races on the world. Core Races Humans Adaptable, lucky, with heroic grit, and above all, fecund: Humans can interbreed with most of the humanoid races. Their fecundity seems to truly be supernatural. Their hybrid offspring are almost universally fertile, and unlike natural hybrids, there seems to never be a systemic difference based on which race was the father and which the mother (mules are very different from hinnies; ligers are very differnt from tigons; but a half-elf is pretty much a half elf regardless of whether they had a human mother or an elven one). This is also the reason that it is unnecessary to specify the second "half" in half-elf, etc. It's not common knowledge, but in this world, even most outsiders cannot freely interbreed with mortals: with very very few exceptions, aasimir, tieflings, and genesai, even ones that appear to be related to other races, are originally descended from human/outsider pairings. Halflings They're found pretty much whenever humans are, though typically in their own isolated pastoral communities. They do pick up a halfling flavored version of the local languages and culture. Some people honestly consider them more like an offshoot of humans than a separate race. "Proof" is that there aren't really "three-quarter-lings", and the offspring of halflings and humans are recognizably either fully human or fully halfling. Halflings aren't quite micro-humans, but they are close. They are slightly taller (+4" on average) than indicated by their book entry. Their proportions (eg, head size, limb length) are quite close to those of many human children, age 8-12, their hands and feet especially are oversized (though ). Their ears are often pointed, but no more than a human's could be. Many citified halflings have taken to wearing shoes, and some of these shave off their foot hair. Gnomes Recent (-ish, ~1000 years ago...) immigrants from the First World. They seem to be one of the few non-monstrous humanoid races with which humans cannot interbreed (which some consider odd, considering, since humans can interbreed with several other races). Gnomes came to the material world fleeing something often translated as "The Great Darkness". Beyond that name, the nature of this foe is intentionally unrecorded; gnomish historians say that it is written that knowledge of the foe is dangerous. Whether inherently harmful, or if it lures or strengthens the enemy is also unrecorded. They are subject to the Fading: if a gnome is not diligently pursuing some fixation, they start to become drab and lifeless, color and vigor fading from them. Some people speculate that one could life for as long as they are capable of maintaining their fascination in something. When not fading though, their skin, hair, and eyes come in such a bewildering variety of colors that other humanoids sometimes think they have a cultural penchant for dyes and colored contacts. They tend to be a little barrel chested with, with exaggerated facial features and long digits. Their ears are often elf-like, and some even have almost goblin like ears. An interesting point of confusion between gnomes and material world races is that many traits we consider artifacts of inheritance are simply not that with gnomes. Specifically and especially coloration. The old gag of an, eg, pale-skinned mother giving birth to a dark-skinned child and the pale-skinned father getting angry would make gnomes very confused, because this can and does happen often with gnomes (no infidelity required). Facial features are often about 50% passed on, 50% the product of pure chaos. Dwarves Just a note; Female dwarves may have almost as much upper body strength as a male dwarf, but they do not typically have beards. Dwarves diverge ethnically more slowly than other races seem to. Even after a thousand years of separation, dwarves in Rimevoice look and speak almost the same as the ones in Dwerdelf. For actual separation, you need to go to the Deep Dwarves, those who stayed underground when the rest migrated upwards, or maybe the population in Ohkhana, that's had a certain amount of interbreeding with the local humans. Elves Like gnomes, elves are also immigrants from the first world, though they came to the material world closer to the dawn of time (though some groups have migrated back). However, they do retain certain characteristics that hint at their fey origins. Some elves trance, rather than sleep. These need only to meditate for four hours a night to become fully rested, and moreover they have nearly full awareness to danger while they do so. It crops up in many populations, but most First Elves have it. (This is available as a racial trait with the prerequisite of elven immunities.) Additionally, what to a human would appear as an ethnicity is actually the product of the tie between the elf and the environment around them. It can be very strange for a human to meet an elf they've not seen in 10 years and find certain similar features and personality poured into a new mold, with completely different coloration. An "adolescent" elf can change tribe as rapidly as 5 years, but usually it takes about 10. Once they've reached maturity, 20 years is more typical, for the ones that change at all (some are very set in their ways, and won't change no matter how long they live in a new environment). From birth to age 25 elves will always look like an even mixture of their parents' tribe(s) and the one related to their place of birth (though in the vast majority of cases this means three parts of three from the same tribe). Around age 25 they'll rapidly shift (<5 years) to a tribe based on where they currently consider home (see Whimsy for elves that don't feel they have a home at this age). They reach a basic sort of physical maturity around age 25, and reach full maturity around age 100. (Roughly equivalent to human ages 16-18 and 24-26) The closest-to-correct Common word for the different varieties of elf is "tribe". "Flavor" is sometimes used as mildly derogatory slang, and the scholarly Common word is either the elvish one (Quenya would be "nosse", I guess), or "gens". The tribes with which most people in the 12 Seas are familiar are High, Common, and Forest elves. (High is actually a misnomer, in Elvish, the word is "silver" or "gold", and their word for "high" reserved for a different tribe entirely.) Note that some of these names still do include variations. For instance, while they're very similar, Forest and Plains tribes are different, and deciduous rain forest tribes are different from evergreen forest tribes. Lifestyle also has an impact too, as loners are known to have different features than communal elves in the same biome. Elf tribes Listed by: common name (Translation of Elven name) * High (Silver): Elves of modern elven cities. Pale skin; pale blue or yellow/brown eyes; platinum blond hair; sharp features; leaf ears. * High (Gold): Many human cities in the 12 Seas have a large elven district. This tribe describes them. "Peaches and cream" or even slightly tawny skin; blue or green eyes; blond hair; sharp features, with slight differences from Silver elves; leaf ears. * Common (Lost/Forlorn): unfortunate elves of lower station in non-elven cities. Pale or chalky skin; hazel eyes; brown or mousy gray hair; more rounded features; upturned point ears. * Forest (Wanderers): Elves that live a semi-nomadic life in forests or plains. Red to brown skin; bright hazel, brown, or green eyes; hair can be green, russet, or fox pelt red; more prominent, but rounded features (eg, high but round cheekbones, aquiline noses); leaf ears. * Sand (Dusk): These very rarely travel to the 12 Seas, and so are exotic there, but are the most common elves of Resting Place (Yalt). The elves that live a nomadic life in hot and windy climes; especially if they are active mainly around twilight. Dusky or dark skin; cat-pupiled eyes, violet or amber; black hair; long noses, shorter faces, sharp features but less high than Gold or Silver elves; blade ears. * First (High): The elves that long ago emigrated back to the First World, and live there in shining towers wrapped around mountainous trees. Pale skin with strange shining texture; Eyes a single color, slightly luminescent silver or blue, from corner to corner; hair is metallic gold or silver; features are more markedly alien, sharp and prominent, long faces, strong jaws; triangular ears. * First (First): The elves that live wild and nomadic lives in the First World. Olive skin with same texture as the high elves; eyes the same but a pale red or purple; pale pastel hair; similar features as high elves; triangular ears. These tribes are known, but somewhat foreign to most peoples in the world. * Jungle/Savage (Wild): elves that live in villages in very harsh and often hot climates, typically jungles and marshes. Mahogany or walnut dark skin; almost black eyes; fine features; blade ears. * Frost/Ice/Arctic (Winter): elves that live in cold, snowy environments. Very pale white skin, possibly with blueish highlights; pale blue, violet, or white (pigmented) eyes; blond hair; Stark, narrow features; leaf ears. * Deep/Earth (Deep): Elves that live in the Deepings. Gray skin; pale whiteish eyes; lichen colored hair; craggy features; triangular ears. * Mer (Sea): Elves that live near or under water. Blue or gray-green tinted skin; blue or hazel eyes; pale blue or gray hair; blade ears. * real name, maybe half-breed? (Whimsy): elves that don't quite wander, but never stay in the same place either, only applies to loners, and can only happen for elves under 100. Rarer than you'd think, their features are a mix of those tribes that they've mixed with for a little while during their journeys. Very rare Tribes: * Sun (Celestial): elves of a religious community that worships the sun, moon, stars, and dawn in particular. Golden tawny skin that glows slightly; gold eyes; pale blond hair; gold elf features; triangular ears. * Shadow (Sidereal): elves of a related community that worships night and the stars and shadow. Unusually blue/black skin; dark eyes with gray-black sclera; silver or black hair; fine features; triangular ears. * Drow. Not actually a tribe of elves, and you'll cause some anger if you suggest as such. Don't worry though, as this is an in-world point of confusion sometimes as too. Many elves will even describe drow as a separate race with which they could not even interbreed. Half-breeds True-breeding hybrids of humans and another race. None of these have the fecundity of humans, but can breed true, as well as interbreed with humans and their parent race. Muls Muls are taller than humans on average, and almost as beefy as dwarves. They tend to get coloration from their human parent. They typically have very little head hair (about 60% of all have no head hair, and 60% of men have no facial hair, with a non-uniform overlap, so about 50% of men are completely head hairless), and what they do get is almost always in very strange patterns (eg, born with a tonsure, or mohawk, or grow only side burns, or only a chin-strap beard, or only a thick, luxurious mustache). Even many Mul that do grow hair will shave it off in a sort of racial solidarity. There is an extremely low rate of pregnancy between dwarves and humans, or even between muls and either. So most muls are actually born to mul parents, meaning that of the half-breed races, they've made the most headway to establishing their own culture. Among themselves, they are less fertile than humans, more so than dwarves. Half-elves They typically do not inherit the special bond elves have to the land, and so almost always have the coloration of their human parent. Half-orcs Orcs are most common in Adaxos, so half-orcs are prevalent there, but ironically, the only primarily half-orc settlement in the world is in the 12 seas. (Political pressure would be too strongly against them in Adaxos. Neither dwarves nor humans would stand for it. So they just have to put up with being spat upon and insulted and have full humans fail to be surprised about how short-tempered they come up.) Descendants Some creatures with which humans can interbreed have blood strong enough that even diluted after generations, the children are still a distinct population. Notable is that the first generation half-breed usually retains the fecundity of a human, which is how you get the majority of the odder combinations (eg, a half-celestial ogre is almost always technically a quarter-celestial, quarter-human, half-ogre, or similar). Aasimar Descended from good outsiders. Tieflings Descended from evil outsiders. Genesai Descended from elemental outsiders, genies specifically (99.9% of the time); come in oread, sylph, naiad, eefrit flavors. Suli are similar, descended from Janni Genies. Shifters Not clear, but possibly the biological descendants of lycanthropes. There are several races that are believed to be true-breeding sub-populations. Catfolk almost certainly are, vanara and ratfolk probably, but probably not eg, Grippli. Goliaths Generally believed to be the descendants of human-giant half-breeds, but some believe they were actually the product of magical experimentation (as a note, it's not common knowledge, but true giants seem to be one species, ie, they can interbreed, and thus, so can most half-giant half-humans). They have actually established a stable (if very small) population on all three major landmasses, and in Frost. They're very tall (obviously), athletic, have patterns of small Rocky/bony studs on their skin, and sometimes have very strange skin/hair/eye coloration.